Working in an interdisciplinary context, audiologists identify and provide habilitative services for communicatively and educationally handicapping hearing loss. The Audiology Department offers the following clinical services:

  • Auditory evoked potential measurements (i.e., BAER, ABR)
  • Comprehensive audiological evaluations
  • Audiological screenings
  • Acoustic admittance measurements of middle ear function
  • Measurements of otoacoustic emissions (assesses the function of the outer hair cells in the cochlea)
  • State-of-the-art hearing aid dispensing and evaluations
  • Electroacoustic and in situ measurements of hearing aid performance
  • Auditory processing evaluations

Inpatient Programs:

Comprehensive audiological services are provided to inpatients in conjunction with interdisciplinary evaluations and upon referral by the attending inpatient physician.

Days and Hours of Operation:
Monday - Friday, 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., with flexibility when necessary.

Contact:
Roberta Mason
Administrative Coordinator
Department of Audiology
707 North Broadway
Phone: (443) 923-3223

Outpatient Programs:

Audiological evaluations and screenings are scheduled through the Audiology Program in the context of interdisciplinary evaluations, or as single discipline evaluations upon the referral of family members, physicians, schools or other professionals or agencies. Audiologists at Kennedy Krieger Institute are skilled in the assessment of children and adults with developmental delay and/or behavior disorders.

Days and Hours of Operation:
Monday - Friday, 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., with flexibility when necessary.

Contact:

For children new to Kennedy Krieger Institute, call the Care Management Office at (443) 923-9400 or (888) 554-2080.

For patients returning to Kennedy Krieger Institute's Audiology Department, appointments may be made by calling the Audiology Department Office at (443) 923-3220.

See Audiology Program for more information on our services.

Professional Training:

The Audiology Department participates in the Kennedy Krieger Institute/Johns Hopkins Maternal and Child Health Bureau/LEND training program, and has had contractual agreements with the Communication Sciences and Disorders programs at the following universities: University of Maryland, Monclair State University, Gallaudet University, Towson University, University of Virginia, University of Georgia and Bloomsburg University.

Research:

Recent research/outcome evaluation research includes the following:

  • A long-term project exploring the auditory function in children and adults with Rett syndrome, sponsored by the NIH.

The audiology department has also been involved with several collaborative research studies with the Johns Hopkins University Bloomsberg School of Public Health.

  • One study was in collaboration with the Bloomsberg School of Public Health Center for Nutrition and assessed the impact of preschool vitamin A supplementation on the risk of hearing loss and middle ear dysfunction among young adults in rural Nepal.
  • A second study was a collaborative study with the Bloomsberg School of Public Health Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health and involved use of the auditory brainstem response as a measure of neural maturation in new born infants and related that measure to maternal stress to assess the impact of maternal stress patterns during gestation on infant development.
  • A third study was in collaboration with the Bloomsberg School of Public Health Department of Epidemiology and examined the relationship between maternal thyroid auto antibodies during the third trimester and hearing loss in children at ages three and seven.

In addition, the department is also involved in a multisite longitudinal study of hearing loss in osteogenesis imperfecta, and has been involved in several studies concerned with the nature of auditory dysfunction in neurodegenerative disease (e.g., adrenoleukodystrophy and adrenomyleoneuropathy) and traumatic brain injury.

Professional Certifying Organizations:

American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA)
American Board of Audiology (ABA)

Certifications:

Certificate of Clinical Competence (ASHA)
Board Certification in Audiology (ABA)

Staffing (Licensure):

All staff are certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and licensed in the state of Maryland as audiologists. All staff have doctoral degrees from universities accredited by the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech Language Pathology (CAA).